Civilized nations have long since been convinced that education, as
it respects males, will not, like trade, regulate itself; and hence,
they have made it a prime object to provide that sex with everything
requisite to facilitate their progress in learning: but female
education has been left to the mercy of private adventurers; and the
consequence has been to our sex, the same, as it would have been to
the other, had legislatures left their accommodations, and means of
instruction, to chance also.
Education cannot prosper in any community, unless, from the ordinary
motives which actuate the human mind, the best and most cultivated
talents of that community, can be brought into exercise in that
way. Male education flourishes, because, from the guardian care of
legislatures, the presidencies and professorships of our colleges
are some of the highest objects to which the eye of ambition is
directed. Not so with female institutions. Preceptresses of these, are
dependent on their pupils for support, and are consequently liable
to become the victims of their caprice. In such a situation, it is
not more desirable to be a preceptress, than it would be, to be a
parent, invested with the care of children, and responsible for their
behaviour, but yet, depending on them for subsistence, and destitute of
power to enforce their obedience.
Feminine delicacy requires, that girls should be educated chiefly by
their own sex. This is apparent from considerations, that regard their
health and conveniences, the propriety of their dress and manners, and
their domestic accomplishments.
Boarding schools, therefore, whatever may be their defects, furnish the
best mode of education provided for females.
Concerning these schools it may be observed:
1. They are temporary institutions, formed by individuals, whose
object is present emolument. But they cannot be expected to be greatly
lucrative; therefore, the individuals who establish them, cannot afford
to provide suitable accommodations, as to room. At night, the pupils
are frequently crowded in their lodging rooms; and during the day
they are generally placed together in one apartment, where there is a
heterogeneous mixture of different kinds of business, accompanied with
so much noise and confusion, as greatly to impede their progress in
study.
2. As individuals cannot afford to provide suitable accommodations as
to room, so neither can they afford libraries, and other apparatus,
necessary to teach properly the various branches in which they pretend
to instruct.
3. Neither can the individuals who establish these schools afford
to provide suitable instruction. It not unfrequently happens, that
one instructress teaches, at the same time and in the same room, ten
or twelve distinct branches. If assistants are provided, such are
usually taken as can be procured for a small compensation. True, in
our large cities, preceptresses provide their pupils with masters,
though at an expense, which few can afford. Yet none of these masters
are responsible for the general proficiency or demeanour of the
pupils. Their only responsibility, is in the particular branch which
they teach; and to a preceptress, who probably does not understand it
herself, and who is, therefore incapable of judging, whether or not it
is well taught.
4. It is impossible, that in these schools such systems should be
adopted and enforced, as are requisite for properly classing the
pupils. Institutions for young gentlemen are founded by public
authority, and are permanent; they are endowed with funds, and their
instructors and overseers, are invested with authority to make such
laws, as they shall deem most salutary. From their permanency, their
laws and rules are well known. With their funds they procure libraries,
philosophical apparatus, and other advantages, superior to what can
elsewhere be found; and to enjoy these, individuals are placed under
their discipline, who would not else be subjected to it. Hence the
directors of these institutions can enforce, among other regulations,
those which enable them to make a perfect classification of their
students. They regulate their qualifications for entrance, the kind
and order of their studies, and the period of their remaining at
the seminary. Female schools present the reverse of this. Wanting
permanency, and dependent on individual patronage, had they the wisdom
to make salutary regulations, they could neither enforce nor purchase
compliance. The pupils are irregular in their times of entering and
leaving school; and they are of various and dissimilar acquirements.
Each scholar, of mature age, thinks she has a right to judge for
herself respecting what she is to be taught; and the parents of those,
who are not, consider, that they have the same right to judge for them.
Under such disadvantages, a school cannot be classed, except in a very
imperfect manner.
5. It is for the interest of instructresses of boarding schools, to
teach their pupils showy accomplishments, rather than those, which
are solid and useful. Their object in teaching is generally present
profit. In order to realize this, they must contrive to give immediate
celebrity to their schools. If they attend chiefly to the cultivation
of the mind, their work may not be manifest at the first glance; but
let the pupil return home, laden with fashionable toys, and her young
companions, filled with envy and astonishment, are never satisfied
till they are permitted to share the precious instruction. If it is
true, with the turn of the fashion, the toys, which they are taught to
make will become obsolete; and no benefit remain to them, of perhaps
the only money, that will ever be expended on their education; but the
object of the instructress may be accomplished notwithstanding, if that
is directed to her own, rather than her pupil’s advantage.
6. As these schools are private establishments, their preceptresses
are not accountable to any particular persons. Any woman has a right
to open a school in any place; and no one, either from law or custom,
can prevent her. Hence the public are liable to be imposed upon, both
with respect to the character and acquirements of preceptresses. I
am far, however, from asserting that this is always the case. It
has been before observed, that in the present state of things, the
ordinary motives which actuate the human mind, would not induce ladies
of the best and most cultivated talents, to engage in the business
of instructing, from choice. But some have done it from necessity,
and occasionally, an extraordinary female has occupied herself in
instructing, because she felt that impulse to be active and useful,
which is the characteristic of a vigorous and noble mind; and because
she found few avenues to extensive usefulness open to her sex. But if
such has been the fact, it has not been the consequence of any system,
from which a similar result can be expected to recur with regularity;
and it remains true, that the public are liable to imposition, both
with regard to the character and acquirements of preceptresses.
Instances have lately occurred, in which women of bad reputation, at a
distance from scenes of their former life, have been entrusted by our
unsuspecting citizens with the instruction of their daughters.
But the moral reputation of individuals, is more a matter of public
notoriety than their literary attainments; hence society are more
liable to be deceived with regard to the acquirements of instructresses
than with respect to their characters.
Those women, however, who deceive society as to the advantages which
they give their pupils, are not charged with any ill intention. They
teach as they were taught, and believe that the public are benefitted
by their labours. Acquiring, in their youth, a high value for their own
superficial accomplishments, they regard all others as supernumerary,
if not unbecoming. Although these considerations exculpate individuals,
yet they do not diminish the injury which society receives; for they
show, that the worst which is to be expected from such instruction, is
not that the pupils will remain ignorant; but that, by adopting the
views of their teachers, they will have their minds barred against
future improvement, by acquiring a disrelish, if not a contempt for
useful knowledge.
7. Although, from a want of public support, preceptresses of boarding
schools have not the means of enforcing such a system as would lead
to a perfect classification of their pupils; and although they are
confined in other respects within narrow limits, yet, because these
establishments are not dependant on any public body, within those
limits, they have a power far more arbitrary and uncontrolled, than is
allowed the learned and judicious instructors of our male seminaries.
They can, at their option, omit their own duties, and excuse their
pupils from theirs.
They can make absurd and ridiculous regulations.
They can make improper and even wicked exactions of their pupils.
Thus the writer has endeavoured to point out the defects of the
present mode of female education; chiefly in order to show, that the
great cause of these defects consists in a state of things, in which
legislatures, undervaluing the importance of women in society, neglect
to provide for their education, and suffer it to become the sport of
adventurers for fortune, who may be both ignorant and vicious.